Geddes on methods

Dan Little reviews Geddes on methods.

It emerges that what Geddes has in mind for testing mid-level causal hypotheses is largely quantitative: isolate a set of cases in which the outcome is present and examine whether the hypothesized causal factor varies appropriately across the cases.…

Emphasis Mine

One hypothesis that could be tested is whether a Bolshevik Party is necessary for a successful Communist Revolution:

Country	Year	Party?	Success?
Russia	1905	No	No
Russia	Feb 1917	Yes	No
Russia	Nov 1917	Yes	Yes
Germany	1919	No	No
Hungary	1919	No	No
Italy	1920	No	No
China	1949	No	Yes
Vietnam	1954	No	Yes
Cuba	1959	No	Yes

As Little noted, the problem with a quantitative approach to comparative politics is the small number of cases that one has access to. In this case, I came up with nine (9) cases. Even these are dubious because I have not rigourously defined what a Bolshevik Party is, and how one can classify a revolutionary leadership as such.

Even the success factor is somewhat vague as a revolution goes through several phases:

1. Dual power (as is the case in Venezuela)
2. Insurrection
3. Civil War
4. Intervention
5. Reconstruction

At what point is a revolution successful? And not all revolutions go through these stages.